It has been a month since my thirty-ninth birthday, and my declaration to the world that I was going to spend the next year of my life doing a remodeling job on myself.  It was a gutsy, and some might say crazy move to include the internet world in my private struggle, but one I do not regret.  Hopefully, if I haven't touched anyone with my heartfelt revelations, I have at least drawn a laugh or two.  Laughter, after all, is medicine for the soul!

My mother has been after me to purchase some new clothing for several years.  Clothing is expensive, however and I hate to spend the family resources on items that I do not intend to keep.  Never, did I imagine that my body would stay this size for so long.  I kept thinking that any day, the weight would start peeling off, and I would be able to wear the slowly-aging clothing in the boxes in my closet.  The combination of self-hate and thrift is a powerful force to fight, but she won a few battles here and there.  My latest purchase was a set of jeans.  One pair of the set was a white, stretchy size 18, and the other a blue size 16.  The white pair was for immediate use, and the blue jeans were incentive.  I could move around comfortably in the white pair, but only if I did so before eating, and I could button the blue jeans, but I really didn't want to.  Today, I sit typing this message in my blue jeans.  I spent all day, yesterday, trying to keep the white ones from falling off!  When I weighed in at the gym, yesterday, I was four pounds lighter than one month ago!  The weight, I know, will fluctuate, as I rearrange fat and muscle, but it felt good to slide the window to the left, and not the right!